


no longer a danger to herself or others

by mydefaultisgay



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, i guess this counts as happy ending?, post-hacking nuts and dolts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydefaultisgay/pseuds/mydefaultisgay
Summary: She clenches her fists and loathes the strength she holds in her slender hands. "I suppose it was worse than dying."I did not have to feel anything when I died. I did not have to claw at my own head just to stop my own hands from taking my friend's life.
Relationships: Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose, Qrow Branwen & Penny Polendina
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	no longer a danger to herself or others

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: post-hacking penny angst to cope with my anxiety about v8. title from "graceland too" by phoebe bridgers.

Penny sits at the edge of the bed, watching Ruby doze off. Her friend hasn’t slept like this for days, Penny knows. Now she looks so peaceful, her features at rest, wiped clean of battle grime and tears. Penny is supposed to share the bed with her but she doesn’t need to rest the same way Ruby does, and her mind is too amuck to even take comfort in her warmth.

Guilt is a festering wound tearing at her, the sting of it keeping her hands remain clasped in her lap even as they itch to touch Ruby’s, make sure she’s solid and real. Not a figment of her fallible mind.

Fallible and weak. If only her will was strong enough, if only she is real enough. . .

 _She’s floating but it feels like the opposite. Emptiness is before her, everywhere, trapped her in a never-ending chamber of darkness. Penny screams and the void throws back a warbled echo of her own voice. She wills herself to move but she can’t feel nor see her own hands, her limbs, as though she’s as formless as the abyss that surrounds her_ \--

"Get some rest, kid."

Ruby had left the door half-open. She can see part of Qrow’s face through the gap, one eye meeting hers.

"I have no need of sleep."

"I wasn’t talking about sleeping." He lingers by the door, perhaps waiting for her to comply, but Penny has grown quite weary of following what people think she ought to do.

Close to a minute passes when Qrow finally seems to give up, yet he doesn't leave. "You want to talk about it?"

"I’m afraid I do not know what you’re speaking of." She pretends.

Qrow releases a weary sigh, an eyebrow rising like a reproach, but the eye visible to Penny, the one peeking through the crack in the door, is filled with something miserably heavy and. . . oddly familiar. 

Penny shakes her head weakly.

"If you change your mind, I'll be right outside. It's my turn to watch anyway." Qrow shuffles away, his boots dragging against the cold stone floor. 

Penny turns her gaze back to Ruby's sleeping form. There's comfort in seeing her like this. Fear isn't far behind, just lingering at the edges of her consciousness, not allowing her to forget anytime soon that she almost snuffed out the brightest light in her life.

In the end, Penny gives in and pushes herself off the bed. She keeps the door ajar when gets outside the room, just in case Ruby wakes up.

She finds Qrow right outside the abandoned house they've chosen to stay in to recover. Her temperature detectors note the drop but doesn't feel it, but Qrow is huddled near a fire, sitting on a old empty dust supply box. His expression doesn't change when he looks up to see her, just points at the other makeshift chair beside him. The streets are empty and there's no Grimm in sight. Salem's forces had scattered, though there's the occasional wayward Grimm to deal with, but right now a lull has blanketed all of Mantle. 

Penny sits herself down and readies herself for it, the inevitable talk, the things she let get done to her friends. . . to Ruby. But Qrow surprises her then. 

"Not doing so well, huh?"

"I'm more than fine."

"It's okay if you're not, kid. You were controlled by a good-for-nothing asshole only a day ago. That's gotta be hard to shake off."

Penny blanches in on herself, looking straight into the fire in front of her and away from Qrow's all too knowing eyes. 

She catches the sound of Qrow shifting slightly in his seat, the distant howls of the wind, a range of infinitesimal noises that keeps her grounded.

"There’s no use blaming yourself. None of it was you," Qrow goes on. "Trust me, I’ve been there more times than I could count. Save that crap for people like me."

"But it _is_ my fault," she snaps, her sudden outburst directed at herself. "If only I had been. . ."

Her words trails off, and Qrow waits for her. When Penny gets bold enough to meet his eyes again, she's met by the closest thing to gentle that she's seen of Qrow, though it is far from the pitying look she's been getting too often since--

"I couldn't see or feel anything when he took over. And suddenly Ruby- I heard her voice and it took me back to the surface, and I was so, so happy, and relieved. . . but then I saw what I was doing." She clenches her fists and loathes the strength she holds in her slender hands. "I suppose it was worse than dying." _I did not have to feel anything when I died. I did not have to claw at my own head just to stop my own hands from taking my friend's life_.

"Hey, Penny, it's okay. You're safe, kid." The roughness of Qrow's voice brings her back to the here and now. 

"I-- I'm sorry."

Qrow rubs at his stubbled face. "Don't be. I should be the one apologizing. Shouldn't have made you talk before you were ready." 

"It's okay. Your intentions were in the right place, and I went outside of my own will," she assures him, manages to force a small smile for his sake.

"You really are too good for this world, kid." Qrow sounds sad when he says it. He pats her on the shoulder and smiles back. "I'm glad Ruby has you. You and her team."

"But-- I almost hurt her. I don't--"

"None of that was you, Penny, and it won't happen again." 

The voice came from behind her, and Penny knows who it is before she even turns around. When she does, Ruby has already walked close enough so when she crouches on the ground, the two of them are face to face. "It's all over, okay? We're both okay."

They pull each other close at the same moment, as if some shared instinct has grown between them. Perhaps it's the thing that brought Penny back to herself. Or it was all Penny, and she only needed the push that Ruby gave her. 

Whatever it was, she's swears never to let anything shatter it, not even herself.


End file.
